Better Man

By Rebecca Skovgaard

Canaan Liberty may spend some time in Nashville picking up awards for the country music he writes, but his buddies know him simply as the farm hand for a herd of goats. To say the least, his reentry from the war in Afghanistan, where he was wounded in more ways than one, has been rocky. The fact that he's writing songs, even the fact that he has buddies again, are signs that he's getting better.

What Canaan doesn't need in his life is Josefina Claire. Seffie is also wounded--left uncared for and unattended at age thirteen, she became the victim of a predator. Seffie is bright and sweet and hot, and, maybe, she's getting better, too. But Canaan knows this: two wounds don't make a right.

Seffie sees past their pain when she looks at Canaan. She sees someone to love. When Canaan resists, she's willing to use a little subterfuge to get what she wants. But Canaan is determined to protect her from the danger he believes he represents.

When the real danger in Seffie's life--the predator from her past--returns, will Canaan have the skills to protect her? And will Seffie break through his barriers with her love to keep him from losing himself in the darkness again?

When it's over, will Canaan be able to give Seffie what she wants, what she deserves: a better man?

About the Author: Rebecca Skovgaard

Rebecca Skovgaard is a midwife in Rochester, New York. She is a wife (of one) and a mother (of three) and an avid, if amateur, gardener. She loves to write and does so on her laptop whenever she has a quiet few hours or in her head when she walks or gardens or should be falling asleep. She writes romance, where love heals and conquers all, and where you can always trust there to be a happy ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Whimsical Publications
• Release date: Dec 21, 2016
• ISBN: 9781940707938

Rebecca Skovgaard

Rebecca Skovgaard is a midwife in Rochester, New York. She and her husband are raising (yes, still) their three children, who give them great pride. She believes that if you live in Rochester, you can never have too many spring bulbs in the garden or Christmas lights in the trees. Under the pen name Rachel Billings, she has published several erotic novels.

Book preview

Better Man

Rebecca Skovgaard

Smashwords Edition Nov 2016

Better Man is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the copyright holder and the publisher of this book, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. For information, please contact the publisher.

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright © 2016 by Rebecca Skovgaard

All rights reserved

Published by

Whimsical Publications, LLC

Florida

http://www.whimsicalpublications.com

ISBN-13 for print book: 978-1-940707-92-1

ISBN-13 for e-book: 978-1-940707-93-8

Cover art by Traci Markou

Editing by Brieanna Robertson

Proofed by Eden Royce

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Acknowledgment

To Chi Daug.

To the strong women and men, those I know and those I don’t, who survive what humans shouldn’t have to endure and still find peace and love in their hearts.

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Also by Rebecca Skovgaard

Tynie’s Place

Happy Man

Lucky Man

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Chapter One

I know where you were last night.

Canaan Liberty stifled a groan, mostly, as he rolled over. He could see a bit of light peeking around the edges of the drapes. Bright, Nashville in June light. Maybe it wasn’t as early in the morning as it felt.

Yeah? Then you should know I’d still be sleeping off those last couple shots I had.

It’s damn near noon. Joss said you were coming back today. I probably saved you missing your flight.

Canaan grunted into the phone. Will Hunter was a fine friend, but still—a couple too many shots. He remembered now why he’d quit drinking. Really drinking, he meant. Well, there’d been a lot about that.

Anyway, congratulations, dude. And why didn’t I know this about you?

I don’t know, man—you’re the detective. Besides, do I know everything about you?

"You know my dog, my wife, my baby, my job, my phobia, and that I can’t dribble left-handed for shit. So, yeah, pretty much."

Yeah, well—

Faith Hill kissed you. On the mouth. And Tim was standing right there.

Music video of the year, man. She was pretty happy. Grateful.

I can’t believe you wrote that song. Or that you’re in Nashville accepting an award for it, and I find out about it when I see you smooching Faith.

She was smooching me. Canaan rolled out of bed, rubbing his face. Will was a good friend, and he had a point. Friends told friends about these kinds of things. Just because Canaan hadn’t had a friend—or been worthy of one—for the last few years didn’t mean he shouldn’t recognize one when it happened. Or act like he knew it. He pulled the drapes open and blinked into the light. You’re right. I’m sorry, man. It’s only…you know, I like things simple. I come down here, I see these guys with talent and money, and their lives aren’t simple. They have friends who aren’t friends, lovers they don’t even like, and wives who cheat on them. They’re surrounded by losers and users.

Looking out the window, he watched the Cumberland River glint in the sun. He knew that, a few blocks behind him, the cleaning crew was mucking out the Bridgestone Arena, and thousands of folks who worked in country music were nursing their sore heads and already looking for the next big hit. He’d learned most guests at the hotel wanted the city view. He wanted the river. And, better yet, he wanted to be home, on the farm he worked for Joss and Marta, a couple of lovely women who wanted nothing from him but some help in the barn and a little quiet…friendship.

I don’t want to live like that. So I don’t talk about it much. It’s no big secret—Joss and Marta know. It just never came up between you and me.

A pause on the line let him know Will was considering his words. That was Will’s way. He could accept another man’s point of view, but he’d give it some thought first. I get it. Leet’s the same way—a star quarterback can get a lot of attention, and it ain’t all pretty. But it’s cool knowing. You’ve written some of my favorite songs.

What, you finally got around to googling me, Deputy?

I did, in fact. Since I learned your last name from the TV.

You only had to ask.

Yeah, well, sometimes when a guy doesn’t share a thing like that, we’re both better off with me not knowing.

Canaan supposed that was true.

Anyway, Will added. When you get back, I’ve got a CD for you to sign. Now that you’ve kissed Faith on national television, you’ll probably go somewhere.

Canaan laughed as he closed the phone. Where he wanted to go was home, and, yeah, he was damn close to missing his flight.

For a lot of years, Josefina Claire had known exactly what she wanted. At thirteen, she wanted to be safe in her home and not have to worry about being caught alone in the house with her mother’s volatile, drunken boyfriend. At sixteen, she wanted to give a decent life to the baby she hadn’t asked for and couldn’t support. At twenty, she wanted to sleep somewhere besides her aunt’s couch, and a better way out of grueling poverty and soul-killing jobs than she could get by attending community college part-time.

At twenty-two, she wanted to go to medical school.

And at nearly twenty-three, she wanted Canaan Liberty. Well, technically speaking, she’d wanted him since she was twenty-one, when she’d first met him.

She was getting better at getting what she wanted.

In fact, since she was sixteen, she hadn’t failed at it. Except for the Canaan thing, and she was devoting her attention to that right now.

Seffie would be the first to say she’d been blessed with a lot of help. Foremost, there was Sadie Benjamin, a young midwife with welcoming arms Seffie had met when she was fifteen and pregnant. Sadie didn’t make her feel shamed for the situation she was in, one that Seffie couldn’t help. She didn’t try to force Seffie to reveal who had fathered her baby. She’d given support and respect and, best of all, a loving home for baby Constantino.

Then there was Leet Hayes, who married Sadie and took Tino and Sadie’s adopted son Jace into his heart and home. Seffie knew it was Leet behind Sadie’s gentle request for a formal adoption when Tino was five. Leet was a man and, more than anything, Seffie knew he was trying to protect his woman from a broken heart.

Seffie gave her consent. She knew it would have broken Tino’s heart, too, if she’d tried to take him back. She’d made the right choice, having gotten the most important of the things that she wanted—a safe, loving place for her son. She was a part of that family now, too, and it was far, far more than she could have expected.

Leet’s parents were top cardiologists at a major medical center. Doctor Aletha Hayes had taken Seffie under her wing—becoming a better mother to her, Leet claimed, than she’d been to her own two sons. That got Seffie most everything else she wanted. She had a safe home with her own bedroom—that once was Leet’s—a year at an Ivy League college, and admission into a highly regarded medical school.

She was down to that single item on her list.

She’d met Canaan at Sadie’s wedding. Canaan had danced with her, but that wasn’t saying much. There’d been dancing at the party on the night before the wedding and at the reception after, and he’d been in the midst of a gaggle of women throughout both occasions. The man had moves, and he had absolutely no difficulty keeping a handful of women happy on the dance floor.

When the women had ended that first evening down at the Easy Rider, they’d all agreed that Canaan was every bit as hot as the exotic dancers, Bill Blade and Lance Duguid, without even taking his clothes off. There was also some conjecture that he was making a determined effort to keep his attention away from Seffie’s hot little self. That was Joss’s term, not hers. And when Joss—one of Sadie’s mothers—was handing out condoms to those she figured would need them the most, well, the majority went to Sadie’s friend, Kate. Deputy Will had watched over the whole group, but it was obvious who really held his interest, so they’d all seen that coming. But Joss kept one back for Seffie, just in case Canaan did more than pretend not to look.

He didn’t. Not that night, or at the wedding the next day, or at Will and Kate’s wedding a few months later. Or the handful of times she’d seen him since at the Hayes or Hunter family get-togethers for birthdays and christenings.

The man was wickedly appealing. He was a compact, tightly muscled five-eleven. He moved with grace and predatory stealth. His hair was dark enough almost to be black and nearly reached his shoulders. He usually wore it held back with a bandana. His eyes were the same shade and intensely observant. He seldom spoke, but it was clear he processed everything, missed nothing.

Except that, around her, he seemed to be Captain Oblivious. He treated her like a little sister—a twelve-year-old little sister. One who was an obligatory nuisance. He always greeted her, meeting her gaze for a brief moment, giving her a nod. But then he’d be on to someone else—tossing Tino up over his shoulder, talking football with Jace or Leet, wrestling with Will’s dog Beowulf…really, anyone or anything seemed to hold more appeal than she did.

Seffie had declared it enough. It wasn’t like the man had another woman. He didn’t. He lived in a small A-frame on Joss and Marta’s farm. He helped out on the farm, taking care of the animals and doing the heavier work. He practiced tai chi on his front porch and worked out with his bō staff in the barn. He disappeared for a handful of days every two or three months—and there was a mystery Seffie would have to solve. Other than that, he was alone in his house every damn night.

She was going to find a way to change that.

Canaan.

Dammit. She with the hot little body had nearly startled him. And he never startled.

Leave it to her.

Canaan barely kept from bobbling his bags. He’d parked his truck down at the barn, so he hadn’t had the benefit of his headlights sweeping across his front porch. And he’d stopped on his way home to have a couple beers with Will and Kate—celebrating his CMT award with his friends, like a normal person would do. But he couldn’t claim he was impaired—if he was, Deputy Will would surely have him sleeping it off in the spare bedroom of his old Victorian down the in village.

And, yeah, it was dark, moonless, and she’d tucked herself into one of the wooden rockers at the far end of the porch.

Still. He’d only missed her because it was, well—her.

Josefina.

A boyhood of emulating his grandfather’s Choctaw traditions and honing nature skills. More than a decade of tai chi practice and martial arts discipline. Years of Ranger training. Eons of living on the edge, of sleeping with an eye open, of relying on constant, full awareness of his surroundings in order to survive.

She was barely more than a girl, and she blew it all to hell. She was his own personal flashbang. He was blinded around her, all his senses stunned into uselessness.

Good thing he wasn’t living any place more dangerous than a damn goat farm. He’d have never survived his years on the ground in Afghanistan if she’d been around.

It had been like that from the start. He’d met her at Leet and Sadie’s wedding party. She’d been wearing this little red dress that he couldn’t even look at. She shimmered—all of her. That damn dress, her tight, curvaceous body. Her long dark hair that curled bright and a little red in ringlets, those surprising blue eyes.

Canaan liked to dance, and the group was friendly and happy enough that there was never a shortage of women out on the dance floor. He danced with Josefina, yes, he did. But never alone, never exactly even face to face with her, to say nothing of body to body.

He was pretty sure if that had happened, he’d have ended up tossing her over his shoulder and hauling her off to the nearest bed. Or cave. Grunting, and taking down anyone who got in his way. Dragging his knuckles on the ground and not caring who saw it.

But she was a damn kid.

It was clear she’d seen some hurt. You could see it in those big blues if you looked. She’d had a baby when she was still a baby herself, and he’d been around enough to know that when no one knew who your kid’s dad was, it was someone it shouldn’t be. She’d done the stand-up thing and given the baby up into loving and capable arms. That surely was the stand-up thing, but it fucking took some grit.

The girl had cojones.

Still, she was wounded. Despite her smiles, her intelligence, and her basically bright nature.

He could see it.

Shadows of grief and hurt lurking deep down in those eyes. Knowledge. That unwanted, unasked for, gut-rending understanding of true pain.

He could and should recognize it. He saw it in the mirror every day.

She was wounded. He was wounded. And two wounds didn’t make a right.

He’d gotten better. It looked like she’d gotten better, too.

But still.

He took a couple breaths and tried to find stillness, his center, before he looked at her. Josefina. What are you doing here?

He kept his place dark. He felt safer relying on his night vision rather than the false security—and interference—of artificial light. But he could see her now. She uncurled herself from the chair, and somebody as little as she shouldn’t have to spend so long doing it, or look so lithe and graceful in the midst of it.

She stepped close. Too close.

Where have you been?

I was down at Will and Kate’s, having a beer.

Even in the dark he could see those damn eyes. She knew his words were deliberate misinformation. She lifted an eyebrow—a dark, nicely-shaped one. For three days?

He didn’t have to tell her every damn thing. Even things a normal guy would tell his friends. Josefina wasn’t a friend and wasn’t going to be. My family all lives out of state.

The blasted woman recognized that, as well, for the misdirection it was. That brow stayed hooked up there like she was sniffing something a little off. Like it was an offense for him to keep anything from her.

Why are you here, Sef?

I need to ask you something.

He sighed, and against every instinct he had—too little, too late—he opened the door. He motioned her in and very deliberately did not watch her move ahead of him, did not watch her ass as it—dammit all.

She took a few steps into his dark house. She knew her way around. He had kitchen and dining area to the left, with the living room and his bedroom beyond to the right. Above, there was an open loft. Her son Tino had slept up there, back in the day when Sadie had first brought him and Jace to live in Vermont.

Sef had spent some time in this house, visiting her son. Canaan had moved in when Sadie married Leet and the whole gang went to live at Leet’s place. He hadn’t changed much. It wasn’t like he’d had a bunch of his own furniture out in that room off the barn he’d been squatting in.

Sadie’s old stuff was fine with him. It wasn’t something he cared about.

But it probably wasn’t right to expect Josefina to be comfortable in the dark, so he walked around her and turned on a low table lamp.

She looked up at him and swallowed. Whatever it was, she was nervous about it.

We’re friends, aren’t we?

No.

Josefina wanted to stomp her foot. Could he be any more difficult? Come on. You’re good friends with Leet and Will, aren’t you? And I’m friends with them.

Canaan lifted a damn shoulder like he was bored. Then go ask them whatever it is you want.

I can’t. There was a basic truth behind that, for one. And two, so not the point. She crossed her arms under her breasts and dared him to look.

She was petite, a quarter-inch or so short of five-three. But she had curves, and most guys would be interested in what that motion did to her breasts.

Not Captain Oblivious. Though he was no longer meeting her gaze either.

He did something with his shoulders again—it looked a lot like he was trying to slough off an annoying burden. He left her there in that small circle of light and went to the kitchen.

Do you want some water?

That was big of him. Do you have any wine or beer?

No.

Lord, the man could be an ass.

He had a filtered water tap at the sink and filled a glass with it. He walked over to her, holding it out a little, like he might be offering it to her. When she didn’t move for a long minute, he lifted it and